camp meals

Sweet Potato, Walnut and Sage Soup

Dehydrated sweet potato rehydrated into a thick soup, with ground walnuts stirred in at the end.

calories
420
weight
3.2 oz
cal / oz
131
protein
9 g
serves
1, scales
prep
5 min
cook
10 min
total time
15 min
water
450 ml boiled
cost
$

Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.

  • Dinner
  • Lunch
  • Canister stove
  • Alcohol / Esbit
  • Liquid fuel
  • Backpacking
  • Car camping
  • Winter / snow
  • Basecamp
  • Vegetarian
  • Vegan
  • Dairy free
  • Gluten free
  • One pot
  • Dehydrate ahead
  • Shelf stable
  • Basic

Ingredients

Dehydrated sweet potato 1 cup peel, cube, steam, then dry until hard; grind coarse for faster rehydrating
Dried minced onion 1 tbsp
Bouillon cube 1
Walnuts 1/2 oz ground fine at home
Dried sage 1/2 tsp
Olive oil 1 tbsp
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Bring 450 ml of water to a boil. Crumble in the bouillon cube.
  2. Add the sweet potato, onion, and sage. Stir, cover, and simmer on the lowest flame you can hold for eight minutes.
  3. Pull it off the heat and let it sit covered for another five. The sweet potato keeps drinking water the whole time.
  4. Stir in the walnuts and the oil. Add water by the splash if it is thicker than you want.

The original is a blender soup: boil sweet potato in stock, puree it, fold in ground walnuts. There is no blender on a trail, so the grinding moves home. Dehydrated sweet potato ground coarse rehydrates into something close to a puree on its own, and the walnuts go in already fine.

Walnuts and oil are why this is a dinner instead of a hot drink. Sweet potato is mostly carbohydrate and water weight you left behind; the fat is what gets the calories back up. The sage matters more than it sounds like it should, since it is the only thing cutting the sweetness.

Packing

Sweet potato, onion, sage, and crumbled bouillon go in one bag. Walnuts ride in their own bag, since ground nuts go rancid faster than anything else in the meal and you want to smell them before they hit the pot.

Variations

  • A spoonful of instant potato flakes thickens it fast if you overshot on water.
  • Coconut milk powder in place of the oil makes it richer without a fridge.
  • Skip the walnuts and it is still a fine soup, just thinner and less filling.

https://hedgecombers.com/sweet-potato-walnut-sage-soup